serf

serf,

under feudalismfeudalism, form of political and social organization typical of Western Europe from the dissolution of Charlemagne's empire to the rise of the absolute monarchies. The term feudalism is derived from the Latin feodum,.....Click the link for more information., peasant laborer who can be generally characterized as hereditarily attached to the manor in a state of semibondage, performing the servile duties of the lord (see also manorial systemmanorial systemor seignorial system, economic and social system of medieval Europe under which peasants' land tenure and production were regulated, and local justice and taxation were administered......Click the link for more information.). Although serfs were usually bound to the land, many exceptions are found in the medieval economy of Western Europe, and, serfdom, as an institution, assumed a number of different forms in Western Europe and Eastern Europe. Serfdom also appeared with feudalism in China, Japan, India, pre-Columbian Mexico, and elsewhere.

Serfdom is distinguished from slavery chiefly by the body of rights the serfs held by a custom generally recognized as inviolable, by the strict arrangement that made the peasants servile in a group rather than individually, and by the fact that they could usually pass the right to work their land on to a son. In Western Europe during the Middle Ages the status of manorial peasants was regulated by local custom, and a wide diversity of names was applied to the various types of tenancy, which extended from the completely servile tenant to the freeholder who paid only a form of rent. Many serfs were theoretically subject to labor service at the will of the lord and in many cases the lord had the right to arrange the marriage of his serfs, but all such matters came to be governed by set customs. In legal theory the serf's holding was granted at the will of the lord, but in practice the right to hold came to be hereditary.

Serfdom sometimes arose from the conquest of a people by victors who did not reduce the natives to slavery but only depressed them to tributaries; these tributaries held their lands as of old, but paid dues (especially labor dues) to the conquerors. Thus serfdom was established in some Aegean regions by Greek conquests. More generally it may be said that serfdom arose only under a local agricultural economy, connected with a political system based on personal contract—some form of feudalism.

See also slaveryslavery,historicially, an institution based on a relationship of dominance and submission, whereby one person owns another and can exact from that person labor or other services......Click the link for more information.; peonagepeonage, system of involuntary servitude based on the indebtedness of the laborer (the peon) to his creditor. It was prevalent in Spanish America, especially in Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Peru......Click the link for more information..

History

Serfdom was known in the Hellenistic civilization, and in the Roman Empire economic maladjustment led to the appearance of the servile class, the coloni. In the Middle Ages, serfdom developed in France, Italy, and Spain, later spread to Germany, and in the 15th cent. was carried to Slavic countries. It developed separately in England (where serfs were more commonly referred to as villeinsvillein[O.Fr.,=village dweller], peasant under the manorial system of medieval Western Europe. The term applies especially to serfs in England, where by the 13th cent. the entire unfree peasant population came to be called villein......Click the link for more information.), and became widespread by the end of the 10th cent. While the majority of peasants were serfs during the Middle Ages, free peasants continued to exist and in some regions whole villages did not come under the rule of a lord. In Western Europe the breakdown of the manorial system allowed peasants to obtain more freedom in the 14th and 15th cent.

Serfdom disappeared in England before the end of the Middle Ages. In the Hapsburg monarchy, it was ended (1781) by Emperor Joseph IIJoseph II,1741–90, Holy Roman emperor (1765–90), king of Bohemia and Hungary (1780–90), son of Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, whom he succeeded. He was the first emperor of the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine (see Hapsburg)......Click the link for more information., but feudal labor service (robot) continued in some provinces until 1848. In France, where it survived in outlying provinces, serfdom was swept away by the French Revolution. The repercussions of the Napoleonic Wars helped to destroy it elsewhere, the most notable example being the reforms of Karl vom und zum SteinStein, Karl, Freiherr vom und zum, 1757–1831, Prussian statesman and reformer. Rising through the Prussian bureaucracy, he became minister of commerce (1804–7) but was dismissed by King Frederick William III for his attempts to increase the power of the heads of the.....Click the link for more information. in Prussia. In Russia and the other Slavic countries serfdom took different forms and persisted in some cases as late as the 19th cent.

In Russia serfdom originated during the 16th cent. when Ivan IV created a new landholding aristocracy, the pomiestchiks, whose tenure was based on service to the czar. Beginning in 1581, laws were passed inhibiting the free movement of the peasant tenants of the pomiestchiks; however, at this time the peasants still retained their civil rights. In the reign of Peter I the peasants were definitely bound to the landowner rather than to the land; their condition became virtual slavery. There were also real slaves in the Muscovite state, and in the 18th cent. all real distinction between slaves and serfs was abolished. As can be seen, the institution was more akin to slavery in the United States than to serfdom under feudalism.

Serfdom reached its peak in the late 18th cent. under Catherine II but was somewhat limited by reforms under Alexander I and Nicholas I. It was regarded by the majority of Russians as the major defect in the Russian state and as contrary to the interests of the rising industrial class and of the great landowners. It was the small landowners who risked losing everything if serfdom were abolished, and it was that class that most stubbornly resisted reform. The serfs were freed only in 1861 by Alexander II (see Emancipation, Edict ofEmancipation, Edict of,1861, the mechanism by which Czar Alexander II freed all Russian serfs (one third of the total population). All personal serfdom was abolished, and the peasants were to receive land from the landlords and pay them for it......Click the link for more information.).

Bibliography

See M. Bloch, Feudal Society (2 vol., 1961); J. Blum, Lord and Peasant in Russia From the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century (1961); R. H. Hilton, Decline of Serfdom in Medieval England (1969); G. A. J. Hodgett, A Social and Economic History of Medieval Europe (1972).

serf

(esp in medieval Europe) an unfree person, esp one bound to the land. If his lord sold the land, the serf was passed on to the new landlord

The general secretary of Eka, Panikos Champas, said he sent the president a letter asking him to set May 12 as the day of the struggles of the island's farmers, who had the status of serfs during the Frankish rule (1191 -- 1489), and for the rebellion against serfdom to be taught in schools and universities.

A SERF has the following unique characteristic: if an imaginary edge joining the initial vertex of the first edge with the terminal vertex of the last edge completes a polygon lying outside the face, the set of edges from the first edge to the last edge constitutes a SERF.

Remorseless threats and pressures place Speyron's bachelor king in a crucible; his advisors suggest a female serf from an obscure village just might possess the answer to the dual threats to his nation from without and within.

The Noble (1417103027), The Doctor (1417102977), The Serf (1417103035), The Monk (1417103019), The Merchant (1417103-000), and The Knight (1417102993) offer facts about the housing, food, livelihood, and perils of each profession, with lively modern-day re-enactments.

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